The production of devices capable of emitting light through chemical means is well known in the art. Chemiluminescent lightsticks, for example, are taught by U.S. Pat. No. 3,539,794. Other configurations of devices for emitting chemical light have also been the subject of many U.S. patents, see, for example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,350,553; 3,729,425 and 3,893,938. A recent patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,166 has also issued directed to an emergency light and containing a reflector. The above-mentioned patents are hereby incorporated herein by reference.
The devices of the prior art, while satisfying some specific needs, have generally not received wide-spread commercial acceptance because they fail in one or more critical areas. The devices of U.S. Pat. No. 3,350,553, for example, must be activated by air which requires some means for accessing the air, which means are subject to failure such as by leaking etc. Other devices have failed commercially because of their inability to emit light over the required period of time while others emit poor quantities of light, do not concentrate the light in a centralized area, require too much chemical to be commercially attractive from an economic standpoint, do not emit light over a uniform area, etc.
Accordingly, industry is continually on the lookout for chemiluminescent devices which overcome most, if not all, of the deficiencies mentioned above, which devices are economically attractive to the consumer and are relatively simply manufactured by the manufacturer.